To avoid getting even further behind on this quilt project, several flower blocks (crocus, fuchsia, and all 4 roses) were appliqued while waiting for additional brown fabric to arrive. After the fabric arrived, was washed & ironed, the handles were carefully placed to avoid the flowers and remain within the boundaries of the seam allowances. This made each handle have a little “bump” at the top of the handle.
In progress #4, the fabric pieces for the Harebell, California Poppy, and the Pansy blocks had been cut out. Going forward, it would be possible to sew on the handles before the flowers, as mentioned in the original instructions (of the second block). Trying to place it correctly without the flowers already on the block was a bumpy failure. :-/
Going back to the basket pattern, the 150% pattern was placed on the light box. A folded piece of paper was lined up on top of the fold of the pattern piece. After tracing 1/2 of the pattern, excluding the seam allowance, it was cut out on the fold. Unfolding this gave me a full size pattern. This was traced onto a piece of tag board. Only cutting off the outer most part of the tag board this left a perfect template for handle placement that could be traced onto each triangle with a pencil. The outer edge of the 1/4″ bias tape was sewn down along the pencil line, then the inner edge was also sewn down. The handle placement was smooth and lovely! I liked it so much that I (and this shouldn’t surprise anyone) cut the stitches and pulled off all the other handles.
The handle on the crocus block was one of the wonky ones. To fix it, the old handle needed to be removed. Using the template pattern, a placement line was penciled on to the white background. This caused the tallest crocus to be in the new path-of-travel of the handle. The tall crocus flower was removed and the handle was sewn into the correct position. Then the flower was re-positioned and sewn back into place.
The second wonky handle was that of the fuchsia. After removing the handle and tracing the placement line, the handle was sewn back down correctly. This meant that the stamens had to be picked out and restitched. Going back to the original article to see what instructions were given about the embroidery. It was suggested to use the “Kensington” or “outline” stitch. The look is much more pleasing to the eye. (going back to the article made me realize that I should have made the darker fabric as the outside petals… oh well).
The suggested fabric for the harebell was “Peter Pan Heavenly Blue”. This small floral was what was found in the stash. This flower also had some minimal embroidery. It occurred to me that I should look up harebells to see what color the flower centers were in real life. I like the how the yellow turned out much better than if it had been done in black. The harebell was too big to fit under then handle
One of the fabrics suggested for the California poppy was “fast color gingham left from summer dresses and since soft orange”. I was pretty sure that I had some orange gingham, but I was unable to find it. The closest I could come was this light orange floral. After all the petals were sewn in place, I wasn’t happy. There isn’t much differentiation between the layers. The embroidered French knots, in the center of the flower, seem to help. The poppy was too large to fit under the basket handle.
Taking color choice clues from Dorothea from the article and “chose bits of left over purple from the fuchsia block and scraps of figured yellow from the crocus”, to make this pansy. Pansies are happy looking flowers and always remind me of my mother. Lots of images of pansies (there were so very many) were referred to before deciding on colors for embroidered center. The pansies were so big and hard to fit in without touching the basket handle. At this point I realized that the pansies had been printed at 150% but the crocus had been printed at 130%. I’m not changing the pansies (or harebells) at this point. Going forward I will print them out at 130%.
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